Valley La Curacao Store Earns Loyalty of Latino Customers by Speaking Their Language

Walk into the Wal-Mart store at Panorama Mall and a greeter is certain to welcome you.

But shoppers at the competing La Curacao store across the mall get more than a hello or a buenos dias. There’s always festive salsa or merengue music, and on weekends customers can sample free food like pupusas and chuchitos.

And the entire orientation of the store is for Latino customers--even the decor, which features stylized Mayan pillars and Aztec pyramids.

“All the salespeople speak Spanish and even the signs are all in Spanish,” said customer Nina Garcia, who speaks only Spanish. “My husband and I have credit here and we’ve bought many things here. We’ll never stop coming here.”

Named after the Caribbean island, La Curacao has a loyal clientele of Mexican and Central American immigrants who live in the mostly blue-collar northeast San Fernando Valley.

So loyal are the customers that La Curacao management says sales were not affected when the nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, opened a store last spring at the mall’s other end with 250% more floor space than La Curacao.

“Traffic has increased in the mall overall since Wal-Mart opened and many of our loyal customers probably shop at both,” said Jorge Ventura, general manager of the Panorama City La Curacao.

The retailer has another outlet in Los Angeles and stores in Central America and Mexico.

Javier I. Araiza, the chain’s advertising and marketing manager, said sales increased 20% in both California stores the last year, with the electronics department leading the way.

“We’re doing very well,” Araiza said. “We’ve met our annual growth goals the last few years. Wal-Mart has not hurt us at all.”

That makes sense, said Carlos Garcia, president of a Burbank research firm that specializes in ethnic marketing. In a mall frequented by Latinos, there’s plenty of room for several big retailers.

“Hispanic people like to hang out, not just go to one store and leave the mall,” Garcia said. “They take the whole family and it’s like an outing--more than just a shopping trip. They probably hit most stores in the mall.”

With the exception of a few small appliances like coffee makers and toasters, La Curacao and Wal-Mart actually have few items in common.

La Curacao specializes in big appliances, electronics and furniture while Wal-Mart is the ultimate one-stop shopping spot with everything from auto parts to food, clothes and toiletries.

With sales of $118 billion in fiscal 1998, Wal-Mart has more than 2,400 stores in the U.S. and several in South America, Europe, Mexico and Canada.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman, Melissa Brown, would not comment on how the Panorama Mall store is doing, but said: “We’re very happy to be part of this community and look forward to serving our customers here.”

The community is also glad to have the giant retailer aboard, said Nancy Hoffman, chief executive officer of the Mid Valley Chamber of Commerce.

“That whole area has seen a revitalization and it started with La Curacao,” she said. “Now it’s so busy over there because of Wal-Mart. They bring the best of both worlds to the mall and lets them mingle.”

Wal-Mart’s volume sales make for discount prices, and La Curacao offers un poco de su pais, or “a bit of your country.”

Most weekends La Curacao has free entertainment that includes music, balloons and popular Latin dishes like the Salvadoran corn meal tortillas filled with cheese, pork and beans (pupusas) and the Guatemalan cornmeal dumplings stuffed with meat (chuchitos).

“It’s important to maintain a festive atmosphere,” Ventura said. “Some people just come for the entertainment.”

Besides the nostalgia and free fiestas, La Curacao offers shoppers other amenities that Wal-Mart doesn’t: easy credit and international transactions.

La Curacao issues a store credit card through a financial service owned by the franchise’s owners, brothers Ron and Jerry Azarkman. Customers are also able to buy merchandise locally for relatives to receive through one of the store’s outlets in Latin America.

Agapito Valderrama says all those conveniences combined with the weekend activities keep him and his family coming back to La Curacao. He often shops at Wal-Mart, but says that hasn’t at all affected what he buys at La Curacao.

“They’re totally different,” he said. “One has nothing to do with the other. For instance, I may go to Wal-Mart to buy an auto part or clothes for my kids, but I still go to La Curacao to buy furniture.”